Blogging and Personal Goals for 2018

It’s 2018, baby!

How are you feeling, guys? You know how with a new year comes new found motivation and inspiration to do all kinds of things that you never thought you will do before? Well, it came to me with a bang this year.

I might have failed a few 2017 goals but I am determined to reach all 2018 ones. Make sure you check out 2017 goals before reading, just to get familiar. I’ll wait here.

Okay, done?

Great! Let’s dive into 2018 with my new blogging and personal goals that I’ve set:

Blogging

100,000 pageviews. Last year I aimed at 60,000 and I hit it! I am so happy that I managed to hit one of the goals that I set at the beginning of the year. So this year, I will aim for 100,000 and hope for the best.

Increase social media following: Twitter – 2k, Instagram – 2k, Pinterest – 1k, Facebook – 200, Bloglovin’ – 750. I failed a bit with the Twitter goal in 2017 but I intend to reach it this time. So for this reason, I am leaving 2k as a goal for Twitter and increasing others slightly. Yes, numbers don’t matter but they do. Especially if you’re trying to make an income from blogging.

Invest in photography equipment FOR REAL this time. I always set this as a goal but I never quite reach it. Yes, I take courses or read articles, books about it but I never get a proper camera for myself. So this time I need to stick to the goal and finally invest. My current camera is acting up, so I have a bit more motivation this year.

Create an online course. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but I never actually pursued the idea. So this year I am making it a real thing. You’re hearing it first: I will release an online course, so prepare yourselves. It will probably be a free course and a bit lame but bear with me while I learn the subtleties of online course creation.

Improve newsletter experience. I am not going to lie, I kind of neglected newsletter in the past months. I’m sorry… I just felt like they do nothing for my blog and I sometimes even forget to write it. It’s complicated. But in 2018 I want to try and get more into newsletters. I realise how great they are to keep in touch with readers, so I need to get a grip and do it better this year.

Personal

Get a driver’s license. I feel like I’m writing this as a goal for about 2 years now? Well, that’s a good example of how anxiety sometimes controls my life. I passed the theory and failed my first practice exam, so I had a massive breakdown and the single thought about sitting in a car and doing another driving exam gives me major anxiety. Yep, that’s how I function. I realise how stupid it is but what can you do when your mind doesn’t want to think rationally? Anyways, this year’s goal no.1 is a freaking driving license and I’ll be damned if I don’t get it.

Visit at least 3 countries I haven’t visited before. Last year I aimed at 2 and I visited 3, so this time I’m aiming at 3 and maybe I’ll hit 4? You see how my logic works, don’t you? Same as last year, I’ll be grateful if you could invite me to your country (partly not a joke). In exchange, I could entertain you with my weird humour and enormous knowledge about tv shows. Oh, I can also bake. Sort of.

Do one thing that scares me shitless (no, autocorrect, I didn’t mean shirtless). Now wouldn’t I be Leta if I didn’t add another scary af goal to my list? Since I started slightly falling in love with stepping out of my comfort zone (I think I’m getting addicted), I have been doing a lot of things that simply terrify me. So this year I want to do something that truly scares me but not in a way that it makes me super uncomfortable. I might donate blood or jump with a parachute, that kind of thing.

Set aside some time for creativity. Last year I wanted to find time for writing and I managed to win the 2nd place in travel writing contest, I started writing a short story and I started writing a novel. So this year I want to find time for everything creative: writing, painting, drawing, filming, photography or any other form of art.

Cut myself some slack. This is the most not-s.m.a.r.t goal of all. If you know me well, you know that I tend to be very serious when it comes to working and getting things done. The past 5 months I’ve been busy like never before and I didn’t stop to take it all in for one minute. I need to learn to not feel guilty when I don’t complete something or don’t do it perfectly. I need to learn to say no to people more and learn to spend my energy on things that also bring me joy.